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Shaman builds
Short overview by purpose Solo/Questing The by far most popular build for this purpose is Enhancement. Even blue posts in the Blizz forums agree on this. It is very mana efficient and therefore suffers from the least downtime while dealing very high amounts of damage. Start with the Enchantment, then go for elemental. Made by simzone.Simzone Shammy Build Group PvE All three trees offer great group talents. The traditionally favored group build is Restoration, because of Mana Tide, and there's never enough healers around. The 10% increase in attack power (Enhancement) or the additional 3% chance to hit and crit with spells (Elemental) though make these builds perfectly viable in group environments too. Shamans focusing on DPS would be well advised to look at Enchant Cloak - Subtlety and other aggro reducing items as a way of effectively increasing their DPS since aggro management is a problem for most shaman builds (exc. restoration). PvP In PvP again all options are wide open. The extreme durability granted by a full Restoration build is interesting, as are the high damage outputs possible by the other variants. One famous PvP build is Enhancement with a slow 2H weapon, which prior to BC could yield very quick (nearly instant) kills due to the high possible burst damage (it is still quite effective). Another popular build for PvP is Elemental -- chain lightning overloads can be devastating. Mordikaiin's Builds Below are the builds I use for all my shamans based on what I want them to do. I have 5 builds for you to use. Personally my shamans are usually duel wield DPS, but I have played with all shaman types and here are the builds I have used. Most of these builds are universal PvE/PvP because I like it that way. Caster DPS Build - Duel Wield DPS Build - 2hand DPS Build - Healing Build Elemental The talents at 11, 21, 31 and 41 points really stand out in this tree, they are among the best available to a shaman. The in-between talents are less attractive, the other trees are more balanced in this respect. It's also difficult to spend more than 41 points in this tree in an efficient way. All-out Elemental A basic method to spend 41 points in elemental would be like this. There are 5 points which can be considered "free", those in Unrelenting Storm. Leaving them there is good for a raiding/grouping build where the shaman expects not to draw aggro, but needs more mana for long boss fights. Talents like Eye of the Storm and Storm Reach are more geared towards pvp or solo play. It's also possible to put one last point in Reverberation for playstyles where the shocks (and not lightning bolts) are the primary nukes (namely PvP again). Usually the remaining 20 points are put in Resto, in order to get another 5% crit chance for lightning bolts. This leads to 41/0/20, with an interesting problem: Healing Focus (uninterruptible heals), Totemic Mastery (totem range) and Tidal Mastery (5% lightning crits) would need a total of 11 points, but there are only 10 available. There are three possible solutions: #not increase the totem range (good when soloing) #take only 4% lightning crit increase (compromise) #not put any points in uninterruptible heals (good when raiding) Natures Guidance (3% spell and melee hit chance) should be used to balance gear. A total of +16% spell hit is necessary vs. lvl. 73 bosses. An elemental shaman always has at least +9% spell to hit from Totem of Wrath and Elemental Precision. There's a lot of elemental gear with more +spell hit, so it's a good idea to take natures guidance early on, and divert the point somewhere else later on, when gear with +hit has become available. Elemental Focused PvP Combinations The above builds should also perform well in PvP. Still, a little redistribution helps to increase the survivability. For example 40/0/21 increases survivability and adds NS while maintaining very high DPS. Since Lightning Overload is a rather lucky affair, builds like 37/0/24 could be considered, sacrificing a few more DPS for more free points, which can be spent for further increased survivability and/or whatever secondary purposes the build should serve. Elemental/Restoration Combo 40/0/21 (level 70) -- Jerrypcjr 19:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC) This combo is by far the best for Shaman Casters who want to electrocute the enemy with the most spell damage and regaining the most mana, while being able to efficiently back-up heal. This build gives you the following following gains: * 9% chance to increase +Spell Crit damage * 5% chance of Lightning Overload * 5% increase on Lightning damage * 1 second reduction on Lightning Bolt casts * Elemental Mastery (instant cast) * Nature's Swiftness (instant cast) * 100% Clearcasting after casting a critical strike ... plus a few more reductions on threat, cast times and mana costs. Solo/Leveling Although not as popular as Enhancement for solo play, Elemental is a viable alternative. In this case, certain talents are less valuable than they are for an endgame instance/raid build or a PvP build. Shocks are expensive, so Reverberation is not as useful. Totem of Wrath is not useful outside a group setting: Searing Totem (with Call of Flame) is almost always a better choice when soloing. Eye of the Storm and Nature's Swiftness are invaluable in tight spots. Some sample target builds: - level 60: 31/0/20, 40/0/11 - level 70: 40/0/21, 31/0/30 (for more well-rounded healing power) There's a lot of room in these builds to customize: in particular they don't include Concussion, which can easily be substituted for one of the later talents such as Elemental Warding. Enhancement A shaman going for the highest possible damage output should take a serious look at enhancement. Dual wielding increases damage output by about 10% (compared to an equivalent 2H), offers greater versatility, and one more useful stat (melee to hit chance). Melee specced shamans are sometimes called "rogues in mail". This tree is rather rich in good talents outside the "magic" boundaries. It's easy to spend 50 points here, without wasting a single one. Leveling When choosing an enhancement build to level, the general theory is to rely on physical damage as much as possible and to use mana mainly to heal in between fights. This way, mana can regen during fights for virtually no down time. In this playstyle, the shaman only uses lighting shield, Stormstrike and very rarely a shock while in combat. When starting a new character, the first priority should be to get 31 points in enhancement (for Stormstrike). After this some choose to go straight to 41, getting Dual Wield along the way, while others choose to go for less interruptible heals and maybe Nature's Swiftness before returning to the enhancement tree. Suggested build at level 50 Synergy Enhancement Build 11/50/0 You maximize overall effectiveness by sticking mainly to the enhancement tree. Free mana is the name of the game here...ultimately to deal tons of damage quickly with a seemingly endless supply of shock spells supported by a liberal helping of Stormstrike. Dual Wielding combos with Shamanistic Rage, Thundering Strikes, Flurry, and Unleashed Rage to keep the mana flowing. 6% mana reduction from Mental Quickness + 10% reduction to damage spells with Convection means shock spells are 16% reduced. Elemental Focus finishes a light dip into the elemental tree for more free mana. For Horde the spell Bloodlust, and Heroism for the Alliance puts the Shamanistic Rage engine into overdrive 1 out of every 10 minutes. The Water Shield on top of that ensures you have mana as long as you keep fighting. PvE Raiding Build 0/42/19 is a pure raid/group enhancement build for level 70, it gets all the talents required for top group performance while getting enough resto abilities to spot/emergency heal, solo, and even main heal non-heroics (provided you have good gear and an off healer). This build does completely neglect any PvP abilities however and will perform extremely poorly there. Most of the choices here are obvious. For people brand new to the class/spec I figure I should explain some of it. * Enhancing totems was taken over Imp. Weapon totems because Strength of Earth is almost always used in PvE (except when you are using tremor totem) while Windfury totem is not as both Grace of Air (which enhancing totems buffs), Wrath of Air (for caster heavy parties) and even Grounding totem find use in parties making enhancing totems a better overall choice. * + To Hit is not as important for a DW shaman as it is for other classes because most of our DPS comes from Windfury or Stormstrike, which use the same miss chance as single weapon hits. Still, having +9% to hit while dual wielding allows a shaman to select for other stats in gear and thus be more effective. It also grants +3% to spell hit. * Shamanistic Rage gives you a reliable way to quickly regen mana in combat. Important for the long fights that occur in raids and useful to decrease downtime while grinding. Timing SR with temporary AP boosting procs and cooldowns can mean a full mana bar every 2 minutes while in combat. * Imp. Healing Wave is preferable to Tidal Focus because 3 seconds is a long time to wait for a heal and you would need to cast 20 heals before getting a free one out of tidal focus. You heals aren't terribly strong unbuffed so you will REALLY notice the .5 second reduction if you are spamming heals on someone getting hit hard. * We drop totems all the time making Totemic Focus an obvious choice. If you aren't dropping enough totems to see benefit from it then you are doing something wrong. * Totemic Mastery is so useful I would never build a shaman spec without it. * Healing focus may seem an odd choice but since we are melee and often in the range of AoE damage Healing focus is critical to your ability to heal through it. It also allows you to heal tank an add in emergencies. Gives you the ability to heal in battle grounds and is required if you want to main heal in an instance. 0/44/17 is another option which may be preferred by your warriors and rogues. * The previous spec's assertion about Windfury Totem's usefulness is just wrong. A group consisting of even ONE warrior or rogue will get more usefulness overall from WF than an entire party getting Grace of Air! Even without taking into account the AP boost, Windfury is one free white damage attack every five attacks for a 20+% boost to white damage. For GoA to be as effective as that it would need to provide a minimum 4% increase to ALL party members when it's more like 2-3%. If you can get a group made up entirely of warriors, rogues and paladins (and can get the rogues to only poison their offhand weapons) Windfury totem will provide a very nice boost to your group's DPS. Save GoA for groups of hunters and druids. * Improved Reincarnation will allow you to pop much faster. For an enhancement shaman, this means another chance to get back into action after drawing aggro -- a certainty no matter how good your threat management is -- and when you come back to life, your aggro slate has wiped clean. Some enhancers have even call this talent "Improved Vanish" * I kept some of the healing talents, but really an enh. shaman should not be healing much in a raid. Better to keep those swings flying, trying to keep Unleashed Rage up as long as possible. FOR THE BEST PvE ENHANCE RAIDING BUILD SEE: Blookats Build * 0/45/16 * Blookats Build keeps the good about the above two specs and takes out all the noob. Enhancement/Elemental PvP This 20/41/0 aims for many crits (spell crits increase melee crit chance, melee crits result in increased attack speed and AP). With a little luck, about 6 things will proc every 5 hits or less. Crusader is a good complement. With good gear (preferably hunter gear, because of strength, agility and stamina) this build can be devastating on your opponents. Survivability isn't particularly high, but it's simply not needed. Another possible build 18/43/0 (designed for 2.3) takes advantage of the revamps in the Enhancement tree. Like the other build, it has a focus on increasing crits. With a high enough crit rate, the shocks become absurdly powerful. If you're actively hitting your opponent you should be capable of keeping Shamanistic Focus up permanently. Unleashed Rage gives you a decent amount of extra power and helps improve Mental Quickness (with a large amount of AP turning into +DMG your shocks are going to be very painful). You might want to take one of the points (probably one in Unleashed Rage) and put it in Shamanistic Rage, which becomes a better panic button with the added damage reduction. Unfortunately, it also most likely has the same survivability problem as 20/41/0 but like it has incredible DPS potential. "Suicide" PvP Build 25/36/0: The focus is on a high amount of damage in a very short time, so no shamanistic rage or unleashed rage, but improved damage and cooldowns for melee and instant cast spells. For as far as i have tested it in arena, i did this with a guild mate Shaman, you will have a great damage output, casters don't stand a chance, and you always have a partner for some backup heals, in our opinion 2H weapons are best for high damage crits, and 1h+shield for endurance fights versus melee classes. 23/38/0 is about the same, however, it will help slow down running prey a little better, and offer more defense. You sacrifice your fire totems to do it, but then again... how much damage would you do with them vs. another melee hit? Two Hander PvP Berzerker PvP Build (Click for more info) * Wild PvP style using a Two-Handed weapon that goes for Pure Damage. Guardian PvP Build (Click for more info) * More of a defensive PvP build that goes for damage while still aiding your allies. Restoration There was a time when endgame PvE shamans were mandantorily full resto. Mana Tide Totem was just the single best talent shamans had, so there was no real choice. Nowadays, the resto tree offers still some of the best talents for a raiding shaman, but also has some options appealing to players interested in PvP or solo PvE. The landmark talents are enhanced totem range at 11 points, Nature's Swiftness (which is one of the very best talents overall) at 21 points, Mana Tide at 31 and Earth Shield at 41 points. The restoration tree offers so many extremely good talents that a build with only 41 points already lacks at least one of them. PvE The following resto talents are all desirable in PvE: *Improved Chain Heal *18% increased effect on HW *5% increased crit chance on heals, together with an AC buff on crit heals *70% uninterruptible heals If only 41 points are to be spent in resto, at least two of these talents will miss (an example would be 0/0/41). A build with all of them (0/0/53) will leave only 8 points for other purposes. Usually players will go for some compromise like 0/5/42 or 0/0/48. PvP In PvP, Mana Tide isn't really important, neither is Healing Grace. Thus a minimal PvP resto build would look like 0/0/41. Nature's Guardian makes a shaman rather hard to kill. Josh's Shaman Healing Build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZx0bZxfxxAeoted (0/7/54) - This Shaman Healing Build seems like there are not many points spread into too many trees, but if you are a Healing Shaman, you should notice theres not really other Talent Trees can help you with. The 7 into Enhancement are nice because the 5% maximum mana increase is a really helpful resource for Restoration or Elemental Shamans, and also throwing in the 2 into Improved Ghost Wolf makes this a very fast cast for a quick get away in the arena to go off and mend your wounds somewhere safe, or run from the fight outisde of the Arenas and Instances. The 54 into Restoration seems like a large amount of points into one tree but if you notice theres not much to gain from the other trees as Restoration, the reduced cast time on Healing Wave is of course an obvious thing to go for because it saves you from all sorts of situations, throw in some Healing Way on that target along with a critcal Healing Wave then your target is pretty much full health with the right amount of +Healing and Totems down. Nature's Swiftness is an excellent move to use when a target in your group is low health because you are able to get off an instant Healing Wave spell. Natures Guardian is a very helpful spell to use because this can be life saving for a Shaman in many situations. Earth Shield is an excellent spell that you can put on yourself, a party member, or your groups tank for a little extra heals. You can change around some talents to see to your liking, for example, the Improved Reincarnation can be taken out and put into what you like. Hybrid Builds In any group environment (in 5 man PvE in particular) hybrid classes should be able to perform in more than one role. Countless wipes were avoided because a backup healer took over when the priest died. With the right spec, shamans can become very versatile. Spell DPS/Healer Usually, hybrid builds suffer from the problem that gear only rarely has useful stats for both roles. Granted, there are a few pieces with melee stats and mana/5, but the other interesting stats for spellcasting (+ heal/damage, spell crit rating) are usually not found together with AP, dodge or other melee attributes. OTOH, damage and healing spells both basically profit from the same stats, thus a balanced Elemental/Restoration build like 31/0/30 will in DPS gear still be a good backup healer. Jack of All Trades A good hybrid shaman should be able to shift roles in a second and be decent at all of them. Should the tank die, he should be able to pick up the mobs and tank decently, if only keeping aggro through self-healing. If the main healer dies, he should switch to healing mode in a second. Being a hybrid Shaman in PvE is all about keeping an eye on every aspect of the fight and acting appropriately. 11/29/21 attempts to achieve a good balance between dealing high damage, survivability and successful healing, whichever is more appropriate at the time. While it may look deceptive considering it never really goes further than halfway down any specific tree, it really is useful for whatever may come your way. It works well for soloing, instances, and to a lesser degree, PvP. It allows you to deal some good physical DPS, while being mana conscious, allowing you to save mana for when you need to heal, or if you can go all out with shock spells. If you master your totems and have the skill to keep an eye on everything happening in a party, you'll know when to switch your role from DPS to off-tank to healer, this build will allow you the room to be pretty decent at all of them. Enhancement/Restoration This 0/31/30 build is a great enhance/resto hybrid build. The damage output is around 80% of a full Enhancement build and the healing abilities are close to full resto, although of course all the top talents are missing. Still is possible to main heal in just about any situation as well as do very good damage. The advantage is that this build conserves his mana for healing, while the melee damage is done basically for free. Good build for a person that enjoys melee and healing and doesn't feel the need to be the 'best of the best' at either. jamvaru troll-shaman enh-rest talent build 0/41/20 This one is meant to be for a troll-shaman to take extra advantage of its totem and restoration heritage by first focusing on restoration talents, then switching to enhancement, to save mana and make use of their higher melee stats. Healing focus gives them a quicker self-heal, especially when using berserking, while totemic focus allows for a more prolific use of totems in general, saving the shocks for interrupting spellcasting or preventing vanishing, etc. Links Extensive Talent Guide Category:Guides Category:Shamans Category:Talents Category:Shaman Talents